


Mother's Instincts

by Bandtrees



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Bullying, Character Study, Gen, One-Shot, Poverty, Tiffany POV, and then not wait for an answer, ask "is anyone gonna exploit that?", headcanons, murkoff will point to people with insecurities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22288486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bandtrees/pseuds/Bandtrees
Summary: Tiffany Hope was long past the point of calling herself a good mother, but that’s not to say she didn’t fight tooth and nail to try and be one.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Mother's Instincts

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a weird little fic - I feel like Tiffany's a character that the fandom can sort of agree on hating, but I always thought that she did truly love Billy despite what she did.
> 
> This is not meant to woobify her or justify her actions, I just like coming up with character motivations ^_^ Enjoy!

Tiffany Hope was long past the point of calling herself a good mother, but that’s not to say she didn’t fight tooth and nail to try and be one. At first, she blamed the environment — living in a shithole trailer with barely a paycheck to her name, with poor Billy having to rely on those free school lunches to have any kind of food throughout the day — and that was definitely a factor, but by the time her boy was fifteen, she had to throw in the towel and admit that she was _not_ built for this kind of thing. 

She loved her Billy more than the waking world, but couldn’t stop herself from getting snappy. When there was one bedroom in that whole RV with a mattress that hadn’t been changed since before he was born, could anyone really blame her for panicking when Billy’d ripped it? She’d overreacted, maybe, yeah, but God, did she fear every day that they’d have a bad month and lose the only home they had. 

Was she supposed to be honest with him so he understood their situation, or keep him from freaking out and stay quiet? She didn’t know. Nobody ever gave her a parenting manual. She barely knew how to keep her own emotions in check, much less a twelve year-old boy’s. Eventually, she settled on silence. Selfish as it may have been, Billy’s ignorantly blissful smile felt like the only thing keeping her going. She couldn’t poison that — couldn’t poison that poor innocent boy into being as jaded as his Mom.

The universe had other plans, it seemed. Tiffany could do all she could to shelter him, keeping him in that ignorant bliss, but the other boys in Billy’s life had no such care. _Inbred trailer trash with a whore mom,_ he said they called him, and Tiffany had no idea where those kids even _learned_ those words, much less how she was going to explain them to her child when he asked what they meant. As with most things, she told him to brush it off — _do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also._

She was stupid to think it would be that easy, honestly, but she wasn’t about to confront it so directly. That was a theme, she found. _We’ll talk about it when you’re older, Billy._ Those ‘ _when_ ’s never seemed to come — the Hope household was trapped in a stagnant state of hoarding every little piece of happiness they could find and never doing anything with it, because there was always a bigger problem. Couldn’t replace their mattress until they had the money to buy a new one, but the money to buy a new one always went to the ever-changing goal post of getting out of debt. 

They never would.

Why were they there? Just to suffer? Because _Lord_ , she could feel her grip on Billy get looser and looser as he grew. Even if the jobs they were taking managed to keep them afloat, Tiffany noticed far too late that her son was growing reclusive. He thought she only saw him as a paycheck, another source of income, and in her desperation, she realized that she _had._

Nothing felt worse. Try as she might’ve to keep his innocence, she’d been the one to ruin it — forgetting that she was a child once, and that Billy only ever saw the worst of her. Scolding him, constantly asking about money, putting up walls that would only break down at that ‘ _when’_ that never came. He loved her, but she feared he only felt obligated to, because if he didn’t have his mother, who did he have?

Her own son was scared of her, and no small acts of kindness would fix it. She’d had her chances, she’d had _countless_ chances for the past fifteen years to make her son feel loved, but that was overruled by her survival instincts. Billy was another mouth to feed, another tax, another bill, and Tiffany was so wrapped up in her fear of the future that she never once thought of the present.

All Billy knew of his mother was the greed, the men she brought home, and the scolding. When was the last time she even told him she loved him?

Her boy was miserable, both in and out of the house. The bullying continued — if not for his poverty, then for his soft-spoken nature, or his interests, or the way his mom talked and dressed. Eventually, brushing it off like Tiffany taught him to for all these years would no longer work. She didn’t even remember what the other kid had said when she was given the news that her son had gotten into a fight at school.

She was tempted to ignore it — kids fought, and it was just a part of being a teenager as any — but the school, as well as the other boy’s parents, wouldn’t let that happen. They weren’t exactly subtle about their distrust of the family — though they veiled it as concern for Billy, Tiffany knew the locals didn’t exactly like her. Loud, crude, made scenes at stores… she had a feeling they were just waiting to find something to bring her down a peg.

In what would’ve been a simple parent-teacher conference for a middle-class kid with two parents and a real house, Billy and Tiffany spent that Wednesday after school in a police station. Billy had the soul of a saint, and his mother knew that better than anyone, but everyone in that station seemed determined to twist the story into something it wasn’t. The brutish bully wailing on an innocent kid over a joke. 

Her (completely understandable, in her opinion) freak-out at the other boy’s mother (and another at the police officers) only sealed her son’s fate, and he was to spend a night in juvenile detention — saying nothing of the scorn she earned from the other adults present. As they filtered out, Tiffany flicking a cigarette butt into an ashtray, the door opened to a man she hadn’t met before. 

His suit likely cost her entire paycheck, and he didn’t answer her question about his name, only sliding into the seat across from her. He didn’t look like a cop, nor a teacher, so she was safe there, at least. She really wasn’t in the mood to yell at anyone else tonight. 

“Is this the first time William’s done something like this?” 

She scoffed. “Billy, please. No one calls him William but his teachers. He’s a good boy, no matter what those holier-than-thou sons of bitches made you think he did. Couldn’t hurt a fly if he tried.”

Raising an eyebrow, the man nodded. “It seems like Billy’s causing you a lot of trouble.” She didn’t like the way he spoke, slow and patronizing, but it was better than being outright insulted. “Is that right?”

Tiffany furrowed her eyebrows, making no motion to hide her distrust. If this was some way of extracting some out of context cruelty to make a worse story, she wasn’t going to have it. “What goes on with my family ain’t none of your business,” she spat, adding more harshly, “ _sir_.”

The man seemed unperturbed. “I ask because I have an offer for you. I work for Murkoff Psychiatric Systems, and I think Billy would be a good candidate for a therapy method we’re developing.” His eyes, dull and unblinking, flickered to the window. Tiffany wasn’t sure where Billy was being kept, but she could imagine it was… somewhere in that direction. “I don’t mean to offend you when I say I feel like he needs it.”

“I know my son better’n anybody else, ‘n’ _certainly_ better’n you, thanks very much.” _We get along just fine_ , she nearly adds, but knows it’s not true. She couldn’t afford to ship Billy away to some fancy nuthouse on top of everything else — she knew how they worked. Rake money out of the pockets of good people for some diagnosis or other they could’ve lived without. 

“You misunderstand. The technology we’re developing will be the future of mental health care. You won’t pay a cent for it.” He paused. “In fact, you will be greatly compensated for your cooperation.” 

When she stopped picking at her bracelets to listen, the man smiled. 

“We want nothing more than to make life easier for disenfranchised people like you. Both you and Billy are full of potential. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life being treated like this?” He gestured to the window, where the other adults were still talking — likely about her. 

Tiffany said nothing - she didn’t like the sound of this, but she honed in on the ‘ _great compensation_ ’. That was exactly what she needed, unable to keep a job as she was, much less any job that could really provide for her, but… Billy. Could she do that to him? Taking notice of her turmoil, the man shifted in his seat and pulled a business card from his suit jacket to slide across the table.

 _Your world, Our business_ , the slogan above the sharp blue logo read. The man’s name, according to his card, was Kurt Vigalondo, and a phone number in gray print was typed out on the back. As tempted as she was to crumple that thing and toss it before Kurt’s eyes, she couldn’t ignore that this man and his company looked like they were made of money. She chewed the inside of her lip, mind festering. She scolded herself for even considering it, but… 

Pushing his chair in with a scrape that jostled Tiffany out of her thoughts, Kurt stood. She said nothing as he left, thoughts occupied by the contents of the card in her hands. 

“Take your time, Miss Hope. We only want what’s best for Billy.

* * *

Tiffany Hope was long past the point of calling herself a good mother. Even as she held Billy when he was let out of the police station, she was sure of it. The pink-frosted cake she’d broken her meticulously organized financial plan to buy for him, ironically, did nothing to sweeten things. Though she forced it down, it felt like lead in her stomach. She could never understand what was going through Billy’s head - even when he said he loved her, there was a distance she couldn’t hope to bridge anymore. She wasn’t his friend - she was barely his mother.

She wanted to make it last, even when she forced herself to sit Billy down and explain to him their proposition. Tiffany knew that this was no way for him to grow up, and she felt Billy knew, too. He was just as miserable in this shithole trailer as she was. She’d never seen him bring a friend home, much less a girl, and it never occurred to her until now that her son was missing damn near every milestone possible - and it was all because of her. 

He’d grown from a quiet, sullen child to a young man before her very eyes, and the resignation in his voice when he spoke of Murkoff’s deal made her heart ache. Volunteering as a therapy subject to help raise money for their family wasn’t the worst job he’d taken, but it was another instance of being a vehicle for some cash all the same.

His teachers never liked him, and neither did the other kids - the other families at church all stared at Tiffany like she was an escaped convict, nudging their kids away from _that family_ like their poor was contagious. She couldn’t raise him. She’d barely raised herself the past fifteen years, never mind her son. Maybe he would be better off in the hands of those suited men. It was hard to be worse than her.

Usually, the unwashed kitchenware in their home piled up, but tonight, all Tiffany could do was throw herself into it. If she scrubbed hard enough, maybe the stain on her family that was her decision would go away.

It wouldn’t. 

* * *

The building itself was as unwelcoming as a therapy home could be. Looking at the peeling wallpaper and itchy-looking patient uniforms made her skin crawl — what was all that money going to? Paying people like her? It didn’t seem to faze Billy, who watched the orderlies go about their business with intrigue, even when the suited man chaperoning them warned him to keep his head down. 

Tiffany couldn’t hide her disgust catching glimpses of the patients. Tall, stocky men with hard eyes were being ushered along by doctors, some flanked by what looked like security guards. A few were even in handcuffs, and the ones that caught Tiffany’s gaze glowered hard into her. The whole place was almost reminiscent of a prison — not a kid Billy’s age was in sight. 

Quickening her pace to catch up with the man guiding them along, still holding Billy’s hand as she did, Tiffany leaned in to hiss to him, “they don’t got a kid’s wing or something, do they?” 

He said nothing, and she decided against smacking him upside the head to make him listen. He was her only hope of getting around this place, and she’d rather it be him than anybody else they’d encountered so far — most of these people she wouldn’t touch with a fifty foot pole. Winding corridor after winding corridor, she wondered how Billy would ever get a grip of this place. Eventually, their chaperone brought the family into what appeared to be an interview room, though it was less intimidating than the one in the police station. 

Two employees, both men, were sat waiting for them. The one on the right gave Billy a polite smile as he entered, which he managed to return. At least he seemed somewhat enthusiastic about this place, even when Tiffany made her unease abundantly clear. The workers avoided looking at her, which she supposed she understood. She had no reason to be consulted on the therapy side of things - if she was to be approached at all, it would be regarding her compensation, but that didn’t do much for her perpetual apprehension that people were just as disgusted of her as she was of them.

The opportunity of a lifetime, the orderlies kept calling Billy’s new life in Mount Massive, restating how many disenfranchised people he’d be helping by testing this new kind of therapy. If she was being honest, the whole thing gave Tiffany a sense of dread, though she couldn’t quite pinpoint why. Billy was asking questions, and seemed even excited about the whole situation, which… she couldn’t say she wouldn’t have preferred that kind of reaction when she first told him of Murkoff’s deal, but now, it was a painful reminder that this was the first time he’d ever felt like he was part of something. 

Helping scientists with their research was living the dream compared to his life with her. He was hitting it off immediately with his new caretakers, who were more attentive and patient with him than Tiffany had ever been. She crossed her arms, choosing to focus her gaze on a plaque at the far end of the wall as Billy chattered with the staff. When it was time for her to go, her son wrapped his arms around her, and she held him back. It didn’t last long enough, but she had no right to complain. She’d had ample time the past sixteen years to make her son feel even half as loved as these people had in ten minutes. 

As she left, painfully aware of the lack of footsteps by her side, she supposed she’d misjudged this place. Even when the patients looked more miserable and angry than anything related to the dream Murkoff was selling should’ve been, Tiffany kept her head low and reminded herself that Billy was in good hands. He’d be happy here, happier than he’d ever be with her - those employees would make sure of it, and so Tiffany tried to repress the dread in her stomach, the feeling that something wasn’t quite right here, because what did she know about Billy?

Mother’s instincts meant nothing when she could barely be called a mother.


End file.
